Studies exploring how students learn and understand science processes such as diffusion and natural selection typically find that students provide misconceived explanations of how the patterns of such processes arise (such as why giraffes’ necks get longer over generations, or how ink dropped into water appears to “flow”). Instead of explaining the patterns of these processes as emerging from the collective interactions of all the agents (e.g., both the water and the ink molecules), students often explain the pattern as being (...) caused by controlling agents with intentional goals, as well as express a variety of many other misconceived notions. In this article, we provide a hypothesis for what constitutes a misconceived explanation; why misconceived explanations are so prevalent, robust, and resistant to instruction; and offer one approach of how they may be overcome. In particular, we hypothesize that students misunderstand many science processes because they rely on a generalized version of narrative schemas and scripts (referred to here as a Direct-causal Schema) to interpret them. For science processes that are sequential and stage-like, such as cycles of moon, circulation of blood, stages of mitosis, and photosynthesis, a Direct-causal Schema is adequate for correct understanding. However, for science processes that are non-sequential (or emergent), such as diffusion, natural selection, osmosis, and heat flow, using a Direct Schema to understand these processes will lead to robust misconceptions. Instead, a different type of general schema may be required to interpret non-sequential processes, which we refer to as an Emergent-causal Schema. We propose that students lack this Emergent Schema and teaching it to them may help them learn and understand emergent kinds of science processes such as diffusion. Our study found that directly teaching students this Emergent Schema led to increased learning of the process of diffusion. This article presents a fine-grained characterization of each type of Schema, our instructional intervention, the successes we have achieved, and the lessons we have learned. (shrink)

This paper suggests the utility of studying unconscious cognition from a selectionist perspective, specifically as outlined by theory and research in the field of behavior analysis. Currently, issues surrounding the complexity of the unconscious cognitive behaviors, the number of variables involved, and the multidirectional influences of these variables, are of utmost concern to theories of mind and behavior. Unanswered questions about these factors leave us without the ability to predict outcomes in an individual case or adequately manipulate variables in order (...) to alter outcomes. Multiple examples of current work by behavior analysts are suggested as potentially fruitful ways of addressing some of these concerns. (shrink)

Throughout much of the 20th Century, the relationship between analytic and continental philosophy has been one of disinterest, caution or hostility. Recent debates in philosophy have highlighted some of the similarities between the two approaches and even envisaged a post-continental and post-analytic philosophy. -/- Opening with a history of key encounters between philosophers of opposing camps since the late 19th Century - from Frege and Husserl to Derrida and Searle - the book goes on to explore in detail the main (...) methodological differences between the two approaches. This covers a very wide range of topics, from issues of style and clarity of exposition to formal methods arising from logic and probability theory. The final section presents a balanced critique of the two schools’ approaches to key issues such as Time, Truth, Subjectivity, Mind and Body, Language and Meaning, and Ethics. -/- Analytic Versus Continental is the first sustained analysis of both approaches to philosophy, examining the limits and possibilities of each. It provides a clear overview of a much-disputed history and, in highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of both traditions, also offers future directions for both continental and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

The following is an English translation of the 1960 paper by the South African philosopher D. C. S. Oosthuizen entitled “Die Transendentaal-Frenomenologiese Idealisme: ‘n Aspek van die konstitusie-probleem in die filosofie van Edmund Husserl,” preceded by a few contextualizing remarks by the translator. The paper attempts to show that the phenomenological, eidetic and transcendental reductions, the problem of constitution and transcendental genesis are indispensable parts of the transcendental phenomenological method. It then demonstrates that this method and the results that are (...) obtained by means of it cannot, strictly speaking, be said to decisively favour a metaphysical or epistemological idealism, specifically because the transcendental reductions cannot be undone. (shrink)

I explore the connections between love, resentment and anger, and challenge Nussbaum's assumption that love is self-seeking, leads to resentment when the benefits are withdrawn, and that anger is invariably a vicious response. I sketch an alternative view of genuine love, and of the importance of the anger that springs from seeing a loved one unjustly treated.

This paper attempts to demonstrate that the Socratic critique of Gorgias’ rhetoric is not merely destructive, but actually constructive and leads to the consideration of an important rhetorical component in Socratic cross-examination, as practised in the Gorgias. I argue that the Socratic critique of rhetoric is based on the moral neutrality of Sophistic rhetoric, defining it first as a tool, then as an art of manipulation, which might lead to immoralism, as embodied by Callicles. Yet there is a positive manipulation (...) that is practised by Socrates. Having as its devices irony and parrhêsia, it aims at a psychological destabilisation of the interlocutor through the emotion of shame. In fact, shame appears to be a powerful means of refutation. Yet the destabilisation does not cause the interlocutor to adhere to a new belief and to arouse in him pleasure, as in the case of Gorgias’ rhetoric, but rather it seeks to provoke the desire to philosophise. (shrink)